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nKrampus (2015)
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nDirector: Michael Dougherty
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nCast: Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner, EmjaynAnthony
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nTo make a Christmas Horror film is a tricky thing,nespecially if you’re criticizing Christmas as a holiday, which is what mostnChristmas Horror films do. They either expose the lies behind the whole SantanClaus thing, or just talk about how the holidays can drive you nuts. Historynhas shown that these types of films do not make it big at the box office becausenthey attack the cash cow of consumerism: Santa Claus. Films like for examplenSilent Night, Deadly Night (1984) died quick deaths at the box office becausenangry parents were furious at the idea of a killer Santa Claus, because younknow, Jolly Saint Nick is supposed to represent goodness and happiness and wencan’t have anything tinge that image that Santa Claus. But these movies keepngetting made in spite of their sketchy track record at the box office. Take fornexample the super fun, ultra gory Santa’s Slay (2005). It also died a quickndeath at the box office and went immediately to dvd, but man, what a fun movienit is. It’s just that in it, Santa is a demon who kills a bunch of people with Christmasnornaments. These movies aren’t “badnmovies” perse, well some of the are, but most of them are actually good horror films;nthe reason they fail to make money is because they are shunned, put aside like annunwanted child. But whatever, usually I like these movies because they analyzenthe true nature of Christmas and its consumerist roots. I mean, come on, younall know Santa Claus as we know it was in large part created by the folks at Coca Cola right?
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nKrampus is all about the Engel family; they are having a Christmasnget together type of deal. You know, the kind where you have family membersncome over and visit you and everybody is jolly and merry together, drinking eggnnog and reading Christmas stories. The only problem with the Engel family isnthat everybody hates each other. This family exudes so much hatred, that Max,nthe little kid in the family ends telling everyone that he hates Christmas andnthat he hates all of them. At this moment a demon known as Krampus shows up andnstarts killing family members because they didn’t celebrate Christmas properly,nbecause the family hated each other instead of loving each other. The familynmust try and survive the night while creepy demonic creatures stalk them. Cannthe Krampus curse be broken? Is there a chance to survive this nightmarishnnight?
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nThe director of this film, Michael Dougherty, is similar in manynways to Tim Burton in the sense that they are both obsessed with the holidays.nDougherty’s first student film was an animated short film entitled Season’snGreetings (1996), which was the basis for his first full length feature filmnTrick R’ Treat (2007), an anthology film where four different stories takenplace during Halloween night. Both Seasons Greetings (1996) and Trick R’ Treat (2007)nare very atmospheric, creepy Halloween films that truly embrace the holiday,nwhich is the same thing Dougherty does with Krampus (2015). On this film,nDougherty captures what Christmas is like for all of us. Dougherty paints anvery contemporary take on the holiday by brilliantly starting out the film duringnBlack Friday, with people punching each other over a television set. To thenbest of my understanding, no film has depicted Black Friday yet, so I thoughtnit was genius that Dougherty captured the craziness of that day in which greednflourishes and I feel ashamed of humanity. On that day, people become monsters,nconsumerist zombies responding to the programming they’ve received throughntelevision. So yeah, I was glad that the film starts out this way, showing thenugliest side of Christmas, holding a mirror up to society.
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nKrampus also focuses on the spooky side of Christmas, whichnexplains why during the first few frames of the film we see a television setnshowing Alastair Sim in Scrooge (1951), a Christmas ghost story. In this way,nthe filmmaker’s foreshadow the events ahead, they let us know from early onnthat Christmas mythology has its spooky side. What Dougherty did with Krampusnis sort of the same thing he did in Trick R’ Treat (2007). If you rememberncorrectly, in Trick R’ Treat there’s this story about an old Scrooge likencharacter that hates Halloween and everything about it, so in comes this littlenmonster that’s going to make him pay for not celebrating Halloween properly. Doughertynsimply applied that formula to Christmas, which why Krampus is a demon thatncomes to kill you if you don’t celebrate Christmas properly. So in a way,nKrampus is a film that while criticizing Christmas, it also promotes thencelebration of Christmas. It’s a filmnthat says celebrate, be merry and love each other, or else!
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nI liked the premise of a family locked inside their housenbecause of a raging blizzard because it amps up the creepy vibe. Suddenly thensnowmen look evil, the trees are dead, the wind is howling…Dougherty expertlynturns Christmas images into horrifying images. I loved the concept of Krampus,nthis giant demon with hooves, who looks like a zombified Santa Clause that has thesenevil ginger bread men, demonic teddy bears and clowns to help him carry out the curse. He also has an evil jacknin the box to help him. At one point it was beginning to feel like Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys (2004), but with a budget? Actually, it reminded me most of Gremlins (1984) in the sense that it was mixing horror,ncomedy and Christmas all in the same film. Yet even Gremlins (1984) was more graphicnin nature than this one. I only had two problems with Krampus, number one is that at some point it felt a little repetitive, with the demonic toys jumping on people and looking all scary but not really doing anything save for looking and sounding scary, and the other problem is that it felt verynlight for a horror film. I mean you got demonic Christmas toys attacking anfamily, why don’t you go all the way instead of shying away from the blood? Thenfilm tries to be scary, but not too scary so the kids won’t run out of thentheater in terror. I can’t blame the filmmakers for catering to their target audience;nthese guys knew exactly the type of horror film they were making. For goriernChristmas horror go and watch Black Christmas (2006) or Christmas Evil (1980). Or if you want to watch a similar film to Krampus that is far scarier, I recommend you watch Rare Exports (2010), because at its core, Krampus is more about spooky atmospherics than bloodnsplatter, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
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nRating: 3 out of 5
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